EMT #36 with Jakob Eliason - Pickleball as a Brand Experience: Wellness, Activations & ROI

In the latest episode of Event Marketer’s Toolbox, Chris Dunn sat down with Jakob Eliason, co-founder of Pickleball Pop-Ups, to explore how pickleball has evolved into a powerful experiential marketing tool.

Jakob shared how the sport engages audiences across corporate events, tradeshows, festivals, and community programs, and why it’s become a go-to activity for brand activations and corporate wellness initiatives.

During the conversation, listeners learned:

• Pickleball as an engagement tool: How activations create fun, interactive experiences that leave a lasting impression.
• Corporate wellness & public health applications: Why pickleball is ideal for team-building and employee engagement.
• Real metrics & insights: Jakob shared growth data and personal experiences demonstrating the effectiveness of the sport.
• Event strategy & execution tips: How to successfully integrate pickleball into events of all sizes.

Jakob emphasized that most people aren’t familiar with pickleball, which makes each activation an opportunity to show why it works—and to create memorable brand experiences.

Key Quotes from Jakob Eliason:

• “Most people aren’t pickleball players—so every activation is about showing why the game works and creating a memorable experience.”
• “Pickleball is perfect for corporate wellness and team-building because it’s simple, social, and fun.”
• “We can use pickleball anywhere: tradeshows, festivals, corporate events—the applications are endless.”

The episode wrapped up with actionable advice for marketers looking to maximize engagement, build wellness programs, and drive ROI through experiential activations.

👉🏼 Join us for more insightful discussions like this by tuning into 'Event Marketer's Toolbox,' where industry leaders share the tools, tactics, and trends driving success in the event world.

This Show is sponsored by Blue Hive

📅 Join us LIVE every Thursday at 12 PM ET on LinkedIn

Follow Us on LinkedIn and YouTube

Subscribe to our Newsletter!

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome & Guest Introduction
• 5:39 Pickleball as an Experiential Marketing Tool
• 15:39 Corporate Wellness & Public Health Applications
• 25:39 Data-Driven Insights & Growth
• 35:39 Event Strategy & Implementation Tips
• 45:39 Key Takeaways & Wrap-Up

Transcript

0:00:02

(Chris Dunn)

Hey, hello, and welcome to the Event Marketers Toolbox. This is Chris Dunn. I'm with Blue Hive Exhibits. And I want to give a shout out to my buddy, Jakob Eliason, who is joining in from Pickleball Pop -Ups. We're both on site at different events. We're not in our normal spots. 

0:00:22

(Chris Dunn)

So Um, I'm down in Dallas. I'm doing a trade show. We just, uh, actually show started today. It's called aesthetic next. I'm out in the lobby of the hotel and a tone, uh, or in a totally, um, and, uh, Jakob, where are you at, man? Cool birds. 

0:00:37

(Jakob Eliason)

I'm in Destin, Florida. And yeah, to be clear, these, this is not my normal zoom background here. This is the default beach decor in the condo here in Florida. And so I got the whole family. They're down at the beach for a little while, giving me a few hours to, uh, to come on here. 

0:00:55

(Chris Dunn)

Fantastic. 

0:00:55

(Chris Dunn)

Well, thanks so much for for joining us. Before we we kind of dive into to kind of the main talking points. I'm super excited about this pickleball is, you know, if you're if you're living under a rock, you may not know this is like the fastest growing sport in the I don't know about the world, but certainly in North America. I did a little deep dive today to brush up on some of the talking points and the growth of this sport. I don't know, movement, let's call it. It's a combination of sport and wellness and fun. 

0:01:23

(Chris Dunn)

It's pretty amazing that millions and millions of people, you know, get involved. Tons of money being invested, opening new pickleball locations and companies, you know, coming out with pickleball rackets and shoes and all of the stuff that goes with it. There's obviously a lot of connected pieces, but what we're going to do today is really kind of talk about how does this relate to events? So, Jake, tell us a little bit about kind of how you got your start. Like, where did you come from? What were you doing prior to this? 

0:01:52

(Chris Dunn)

And then how has your company evolved? 

0:01:55

(Speaker 8)

Yeah, no. 

0:01:55

(Jakob Eliason)

First, thank you for having me on. I'm really excited to have this conversation. And as I'll share a little bit about our story later, it's just been a whirlwind and Pickleball's growing so crazy. And so I'm the co -founder of Pickleball Pop -Ups. I founded it alongside a great friend of mine, and now business partner, his name's Adam Clay. And we started the original company two years ago. 

0:02:20

(Jakob Eliason)

And I'm wearing a Pickleball 901 shirt. 901 is the Memphis area code, which is where I am based. And that's where I live every single day. But we're down here in Destin for a week. But we started Pickleball 901 early 2023, original intention of building a pickleball facility. That concept grew Just some interesting marketing strategy turned into its own company that's Pickleball Pop -Ups today. 

0:02:48

(Jakob Eliason)

Now we have an indoor facility in Memphis. The original plan happened, and we also run Pickleball Pop -Ups, which is our pickleball as a service, if you will. And so before that - Is that P -B -A -A -S? PAAS, right? Like we, we joke my, my, my business partner, Adam, he, his career has been in software sales before we did this. And so he was in SaaS, and he was selling SaaS products. 

0:03:14

(Jakob Eliason)

And then he went from SaaS to PaaS. And it's just a fun, we're the only, we're the only pickleball as a service company. And so that was a good positioning angle for us. Before that I was doing, I was working on alongside another good friend out of Knoxville, Tennessee, and we were running a digital marketing agency together. And that was my first foray into business ownership and entrepreneurship. But what it did is taught me so much about marketing. 

0:03:40

(Jakob Eliason)

We did a ton of virtual events, webinars, podcasts like this for our clients, and I saw the impact of them. And so when we founded Pickleball 901, it was gonna be 18 months before we got a facility open because of all the different things that you've got to go through. And any type of construction project was going to take a while. And so everyone was looking at me, the marketing guy, what do we do? You know, for 18 months, we've already launched this company. 

0:04:06

(Speaker 24)

Now what? 

0:04:07

(Jakob Eliason)

And immediately some type of event came to mind. Right. And so what we did is over the next year, We did six or seven pickleball pop -up parties around Memphis. It was actually all in one summer. It seems like it took a long time, but man, it was six weeks back to back to back. We did six places around Memphis. 

0:04:28

(Jakob Eliason)

We focused on breweries and bars in iconic places with bars around it as our target because we wanted to make sure that we were doing these in places that people were already going to be going regardless, and it would be easy to ask people to come for this too. And so after six of our pickleball parties where we brought courts out, and it was real pickleball courts out in these parking lots, and people were playing all day, hundreds of people showed up. We had a really smart person that I'll forever be thankful for, his name's Doug. He asked us if we had considered like that type of business, as opposed to the indoor facility business. And we did it, we ran a financial model, and basically just realized that like, a, the market was there, nobody was doing it. We knew that the events market was booming back again, because of post COVID. 

0:05:23

(Jakob Eliason)

And so we just saw an opportunity to kind of build an events company, we thought, And, and that's what we did. So for the next 18 months, while we were waiting on everything to happen with the facility and like working through all the red tape, we launched pickleballpopups . 

0:05:39

(Speaker 14)

com. 

0:05:40

(Jakob Eliason)

And we took a bet that that's what people were calling it. We were like, if somebody sees a pickleball court where it's not supposed to be, they're going to call it a pickleball pop -up, right? That that's the only, pop -up pickleball, something like that. And so we paid for like a premium level domain. And I don't exactly remember how much it was, but we just took the bet. 

0:05:58

(Jakob Eliason)

We built a website around that, that keyword and a few other similar to it. And within a few weeks we were getting Google leads. And that has just turned into a snowball because people will see a pickleball court where it's not supposed to, they'll go to the internet, they'll search for pickleball pop -up back. port rental or something and they'll find our company. And so that just kind of launched us into the conference and events and trade show and corporate world. And then again, we recognized that that was a lane that had tons of opportunity and tons of different applications, which we'll discuss on this, I'm sure. 

0:06:40

(Jakob Eliason)

And so that's been our focus. We stay out of backyards. We try not to do weddings and bar mitzvahs and graduation parties. That's not really our scene. We want to be at large -scale events where there's already a great crowd. where Pickleball can be complementary to that and be extremely valuable as an addition and not centered or, you know, around the whole thing Pickleball. 

0:07:03

(Jakob Eliason)

And so, and that's what we do. And that's, that's kind of my journey was going from, you know, marketing in college to no marketing job because I couldn't find one. I didn't want to be doing, you know, social media, even though I was a millennial coming out of college. And And then finally getting a break by, you know, it's like, screw it. I'll jump in and start, we'll start building our own marketing company. If nobody else will hire me. I mean, that's kind of the thought process, right? 

0:07:29

(Chris Dunn)

There you go. Entrepreneur to the core. 

0:07:31

(Jakob Eliason)

And then learned, learned a whole lot, learned a whole lot, just helping so many different people and businesses with their marketing and are trying to, you know, trying, waiting, failing, doing all the above. set me up, I believe, to, it was just like, we're going to do events. And then that just kind of, you know, kept going from there. And so, so yeah, that's, that's my background in six minutes. 

0:07:59

(Chris Dunn)

It's a good story, man. It's a good story. We'll absolutely come back to that. So before we get going, just a reminder, this is a live show. I see Paul Robinson checking in. Paul, unfortunately, Jakob is not a Florida resident. 

0:08:10

(Chris Dunn)

He's just there on vacation. So you guys are going to have to hook up in Memphis, Tennessee, I guess. Drop your questions in. I'm sure lots of folks are wondering how this could work for their events, so we'll do our best. As you can see, I don't have a co -host riding shotgun today, so it's just me and Jakob. And before we get into the meat and potatoes of the show here, two quick things. 

0:08:35

(Chris Dunn)

We are, as we say we're, we're building a community of event professionals here, folks coming in from kind of all different angles and different realms within this kind of overarching event space, but we were all about kind of just, you know, sharing content and sharing ideas and thoughts, and do us a favor like if you, if you like, kind of the conversation. We are, I think, episode 36, I believe. So we've been doing this for a while. We're putting out great content. We're having amazing conversations. Spread the word. 

0:09:06

(Chris Dunn)

Get the word out to your friends and co -workers and so forth. Check us out, not only here live and on YouTube, but also on your favorite podcast platform. Second thing is that we are sponsored. Sponsored by not only my company, Blue Hive Exhibits, but also by Fist Bump. So just a little bit on each company. Blue Hive Exhibits, we're about 20 years old. 

0:09:30

(Chris Dunn)

East coast, west coast locations, full production. We design, we build, we do all the things almost all in -house so that we can control those pieces and we feel like size wise, we're a literal over 100 people. So we're, we're bigger with more resources than a boutique. And we're not really the big, big guys who make you feel like you're just a number, right? We're, we're in that right size space to help a lot of different companies succeed in trade shows and events. 

0:09:56

(Chris Dunn)

On the Fist Bump side, Fist Bump is an agency that I've been working with, we've been working with for a few years and they really helped us get this podcast off the ground. So not only were they kind of coaching us with regards to marketing and social selling and so forth, but they brought this idea of doing a podcast, trying to step into that role as thought leaders and creating content in this format. And they've been awesome to work with. They do all the heavy lifting and I just kind of show up regardless of where I am, sitting in a hotel lobby or whatnot, or maybe in my vacation spot. And they do all the heavy lifting and put this together for us. So thanks to the Fist Bump team. 

0:10:36

(Chris Dunn)

Cheers to you guys. And we're going to circle back and ask Jakob a bunch of questions. And like I said, we are a live show, so please drop your comments and so forth in and we'll try to get to them. All right, Jakob, you gave us a great background. We understand where you came from. You've got kind of marketing chops to start with. 

0:10:53

(Chris Dunn)

So you saw the opportunity. Talk to us a little bit about Pickleball as an experiential marketing tool, right? Because it's not on the surface, Pickleball surface, Pickleball court surface, which is gritty, but not on the surface. You don't make that connection really easy, right? So how did you Obviously you kind of gave us a little background, but tell us a little bit more kind of in depth on the pickleball as an experiential marketing tool as an event professional. How do we potentially think about utilizing a service or a company like yours? 

0:11:26

(Jakob Eliason)

It's a great question. I think to answer that question, the best first kind of need to explain pickleball a little bit, because I'm sure there's people listening that have heard about it, but don't understand it. But pickleball is a cross between ping pong, tennis, and let's call it badminton, right? So it's like a miniature tennis court, but you're hitting a hard ball back and forth like ping pong. But the court is like a badminton court. If you ever played badminton and you look at a pickleball court, you're going to realize that's like the same thing. 

0:11:53

(Jakob Eliason)

And there's many rules that are adopted from badminton as well. When you think about that, the court itself is only 20 feet wide by 44 feet long. And so naturally you have space deficiency. And so you can get a lot of these, you can get four pickleball courts on a tennis court, right? And so you think about, you know, tennis, my tennis courts are empty. You've probably all seen some empty tennis courts in the last four or five months. 

0:12:18

(Jakob Eliason)

I know I have everywhere. And so you can replace those, you can put four on there and now you can have 16, 25, 35 people out there where you normally had four or six. And so, um, it, It's more of a compact sport. But on top of that, it's accessible. And I mean that even badminton is not the super accessible sport. And ping pong can be challenging. 

0:12:41

(Jakob Eliason)

And tennis can definitely be challenging. But pickleball is wildly accessible to all ages, all skill levels, everything. And so we see that happening at our events is we see a millennial or a Gen Z playing with, you know, Boomer executive, Gen X executive, one's in a suit, one's in jeans, right? They're out there playing on the court together. We see that happen all the time. Skill levels do not matter. 

0:13:07

(Jakob Eliason)

You're not doing overhand serves like in tennis. You're doing an underhand. It's an underhand serve with a giant yellow wiffle ball and also giant paddle. I wish I had one sitting here beside me to show, but it is a very, lightweight and easy game to play. Um, there's, there's actually a specific spot on the court called the non volley zone and you cannot. get any closer to the net when the ball's in the air than that line. 

0:13:33

(Jakob Eliason)

And it's like seven feet off the net. So the game and the rules itself, like, eliminate a lot of the hyper competitive stuff. You can't have six foot three guys like me out there just slamming it on, you know, ladies that showed up to play in their heels, right? The game just doesn't favor that. It favors like a neutrality. and accessibility, which is hugely important when you think about trade shows and events, because you've got a gigantic, diverse crowd that's already in the building. 

0:14:02

(Jakob Eliason)

And so you need to be able to design your activations and how you're engaging to fit that and to be accessible to as many people as possible, because the lower the barrier of entry, the more people that you're going to be able to engage. And so the fact that it's accessible is huge. The fact that it's space efficiency, even to shrinking it down smaller, then you need to. Then a normal size court is something that we can accommodate. It doesn't have to be 20 by 44 or 30 by 60. I think we're taking a 20 by 10 model to New York City in a few weeks for an event for somebody. 

0:14:37

(Jakob Eliason)

We can work with the space. But on top of those two things, especially for an event like a conference or a corporate event or a trade show, it's naturally social. Like it has a built like the fabric of the game is social. It's played in doubles and you're on a small court and you're hitting the ball back and forth. You have to communicate like either I got it or that's yours. Like at minimum, you've got to talk. 

0:15:01

(Jakob Eliason)

There's serving, there's scoring, right? Like you there and it's fun, right? You hit a good shot and you're going to smile. Your teammates going to high five you even if you've never met him. And so it just the fact that it's so welcoming and so inclusive to everybody that's already at these events and all skill levels, all ages, all languages like. I can teach pickleball in seven minutes to somebody who speaks German and I've never spoken 

0:15:25

(Jakob Eliason)

German in my life because it's just so easy to get the hang of so quickly. And if you go one step even more simple and say, OK, the points don't matter and the scoring doesn't matter, then it becomes even more accessible. Right. 

0:15:39

(Speaker 13)

Because that's then you're just hitting the ball around for fun in the middle of the conference. 

0:15:43

(Jakob Eliason)

Right. And you've never done that before. And so So those three things are the three components that make it really hit at events. But then the fourth one is just kind of a plus in this scenario and it's brandable, right? Like it's an interaction that can have logos on it and we can put logos down on the court. We can put them on the barriers that go around the court. 

0:16:04

(Jakob Eliason)

All the paddles that are used can have logos on them or that can be branded. And even we just actually launched these giant 20 foot by eight foot you know, trade show booth style backstops that are now fully brand. So you kind of have this enclosed brandable experience that we can do with Pickleball. And so, and that's just the plus on top of everything, because now sponsors can be involved. And that can be part of larger packages, which is a win -win -win for everybody, right? Because our goal at a lot of these is to keep Pickleball free. 

0:16:36

(Jakob Eliason)

We want to make sure that you're not having to pay to come up and play at any activation that we do. Because again, lower barrier of entry, more engaged people, they stick around for a while. So those are kind of the four things that I would say. That's how it all, it's the recipe. It's accessible to everybody. It's naturally social. 

0:16:57

(Jakob Eliason)

You can shrink it down, size efficiency if you need to. It doesn't have to be huge. 

0:17:01

(Chris Dunn)

And you can burn the hell out of it. No, that's awesome. So, you know, before we, before we started the broadcast, you and I were kind of chopping it up a little bit. And I was saying, so I got 25 years or so on you, roughly speaking, right? 58, been in trade shows for 30 years or so. The folks who were building shows and events back when I was young, you know, did it in a very different way. 

0:17:26

(Chris Dunn)

And now millennials and even Gen Z folks, and certainly younger, you know, not boomers, not necessarily boomers, but Gen X folks, they're the ones driving the boat, right? And they want something different than what people wanted in the past out of their events. They want engagement. They want, you know, it's, it's, you know, It's more fun, I think, than it used to be. People are not satisfied with just going to a boring event and being like, oh, this is ho -hum. If I'm going to go and commit my time, I want it to be engaging and fun. 

0:17:58

(Chris Dunn)

And I want to learn something. I want to meet people. So there are certainly several folks or several different types of folks who are looking for different things. But really, you guys are answering the bell for exactly what folks are looking for in the market. That's the growth of pickleball, you know, is fueled on on this type of thing. Although I learned about it because older people were getting involved. 

0:18:24

(Chris Dunn)

And I understand that the age, the average age of participation in traditional pickleball is coming down. But just thoughts around kind of this, I guess, the perfect storm of things coming together for your business model and for pickleball showing up at events. 

0:18:41

(Jakob Eliason)

thoughts on kind of, you know, who you're working with and what they're looking for and why that works so well together. It's it's definitely something different. So there's there's a few different reasons that we get brought in. It's something different, something more engaging. There's a lot of conferences that are that are doing wellness areas, right in some way, shape or form. Sometimes like we, we did Bitcoin 2025. 

0:19:04

(Jakob Eliason)

And they had this wellness area. So they had, you know, some cornhole, which is you've probably seen trade shows where they had a basketball hoop set up. It wasn't with those people playing, but it was kind of odd just sitting there. and then you had a pickleball course. So they kind of had this big thing. Um, we work with the American society of liver diseases and they kind of do something similar. 

0:19:23

(Jakob Eliason)

So we get brought in to be part of their wellness activation area that's just there the whole time. And so that the wellness part of it plays a pretty critical role, but so does the fun and engagement and something new and spectacle part of it as well. And what's interesting to me is, you know, Hearing and learning from event professionals like yourself about how millennials and Gen Z are starting to drive the boat. That's what we're seeing in pickleball too. That average age that you mentioned, you know, during COVID when this blasted off, it was in the villages in Naples, Florida, right? It was in retirement. 

0:19:54

(Jakob Eliason)

But now that under 35, they're driving the boat. Like they're, that's the future. That's how we know pickleball is not a fad is because it's exploding there, right? Which is like racquetball never did. And so never to this extent, right? And so you're starting to see collegiate divisions being funded by huge donors. 

0:20:13

(Jakob Eliason)

You're starting to see high school pickleball and even junior level pickleball, you know, similar to the tennis pass start to pop up. And so that's that's how we we know that pickleball is not a fad, which is a question that we get all the time, which is neither here nor there. There's 13000 trade shows. If all of them just do it once, then, you know, I think everybody's so you'd be busy. Yeah, right. And so we don't necessarily care that much about that. 

0:20:39

(Jakob Eliason)

But we do see the same thing that under 35, the millennial Gen Z, they're starting to drop the pickleball further. 

0:20:46

(Chris Dunn)

And that's, I think you're going to start to see, including with us on some other fronts, people are getting out ahead of that and designing the future of their pickleball experiences and facilities towards, you know, the next 15 to 20 years instead of building country club models that the original pickleball crowd likes, but the younger pickleball crowd necessarily doesn't necessarily like. and so forth in a second. But before we do that, tell us a little bit or share a little bit with our folks here. When you roll in and create this activation, what's the norm? In other words, are you bringing a playable surface that you're putting down? Are you bringing the nets and the paddles? 

0:21:37

(Chris Dunn)

And you're bringing everything that people need, obviously. But I'm mostly thinking about, OK, what's that floor look like? Are we just putting tape on concrete, like in a traditional trade show hall and carving out the space? Do you typically do a couple that are side by side? 

0:21:52

(Jakob Eliason)

Kind of paint a picture, if you would, of the physical aspects of it, and then maybe some of the best use cases and stuff that you've seen that really kind of created a cool, engaging time. Yeah, so we, to answer the first question, yes, totally A to Z. Everything from getting it shipped in, handling logistics, and getting it back out of there without anybody from the event having to deal with it is our goal. Very easy, very seamless, very turnkey. But to answer the second question, we have a few different types of court surfaces. And yes, we are bringing in a court surface. We have done taped down lines on convention halls in the past, and it can work. 

0:22:30

(Jakob Eliason)

Two challenges. One is that floor is typically pretty slippery. And so when you got dress shoes and stuff like we were discussing before, you know, the attire, We want it to be accessible there too. And so I don't want you to think you're going to come out there and tell your ACL by watching people sliding around, right? I would rather see how easy and fun it is. And, and so we, we have two different types of court surfaces and it's really based on the goal of the event. 

0:22:57

(Speaker 11)

One of them is kind of like a sport court, like a click together tile court that is painted like pickleball. 

0:23:04

(Jakob Eliason)

And. that can, that's the one that really size, we can shrink down. We can go on top of ballroom carpet where, where otherwise with like a mat type quarter, like a real, you have to build a decking and all this stuff, but we can get on top of ballroom carpet with this surface. We can, we can do different colors and stuff easier. 

0:23:23

(Speaker 13)

And so, and also it's, it's easier to move around. 

0:23:28

(Jakob Eliason)

Right. Like it's easier to move around. It's easier to install. It's easier for us to scale it with with teams. So it kind of checks a lot of boxes for us. And so that's one surface. 

0:23:38

(Jakob Eliason)

And then we have another surface that is called Pickle Roll. And we partner with Pickle Roll. And that is like a premier tournament quality surface. And so basically what you're getting is, if you've ever been on a tennis court or a pickleball court and you feel the gritty texture and it's like you're really going to play tennis, we have that type of flooring too when it's necessary. So there's certain situations like the American Association of Physiatry. We worked on that event. 

0:24:05

(Jakob Eliason)

And the first time we used the sport court, we realized, wow, there is so many really good pickleball players at this event. And, you know, if you bring us back, let's do this other court so that because this crowd is really going to want it. They did a big tournament. It was like the one of the only tournaments that we've done that was just just an absolute banger. We've done two or three that have gone really well. But tournaments, tournaments can kind of be hit or miss in the trade show world because there's all this other programming behind it. 

0:24:31

(Jakob Eliason)

Right. Yeah. Those are the two different types of port services. This other one is way more delicate, way longer to install, you know, more expensive for us to get around and handle. But for the right event, it makes sense. And so we start with we start with the goal of the event and the activation itself. 

0:24:49

(Jakob Eliason)

And then we work back towards what what makes the most sense. And a few times it's landed on taping down lines. But we again, like the 

0:25:00

(Chris Dunn)

sign waivers before they play and stuff, but that, I have to leave the room sometimes when they're sliding around, and I don't like that. So we try to avoid that at all costs. Yeah, no, very cool. So, you know, as I'm wrapping my head around it, and again, I'm, I'm here at a, you know, at a trade show, not in the, in the hall itself, but picturing, you know, you got your exhibits, and then there's kind of the common space, right? And, and events are evolving, right? They're kind of carving out space for networking and other types of things. 

0:25:29

(Jakob Eliason)

So when you're at a trade show, are you typically being hired by the, the event group itself that's, that's throwing the event or are you potentially by an exhibitor who maybe buys a 40 by 40 space and puts a 20 by 20 booth in it and then leaves room for two pickleball courts. What does that typically look like for you guys? In most cases, it is the event organizer, the show organizers themselves. And that's part of that is we want to be that we want to be the amenity at the conference. 

0:25:58

(Speaker 6)

That's for everybody. 

0:25:59

(Jakob Eliason)

And, you know, we want we want to limit the urgency of trying to convert everybody that's trying to play to something right because we want it to be welcoming and inviting and a different experience than like you know you're gonna get sold after this and so we've done we've done a few where we're the booth and here's a few challenges there it's a lot of space if you bring in a full court and so like as an exhibitor going to the show and saying I want to pick a ball court. That's tough. That's probably a pretty big expense. And then you've got to pay us to get all the stuff there. And usually we're running it. My team is teaching people how to play and playing with people all day and handling the administration and the waivers and all that stuff, running tournaments if need be. 

0:26:42

(Speaker 13)

And so it's challenging for an exhibitor to go get that. 

0:26:45

(Jakob Eliason)

But as I mentioned, you can shrink that thing down and do a small court that's like that does fit in your 20 by 10, you know, like off to the side where it's more like a little game. right? 

0:26:55

(Speaker 23)

Like set something up on the other side, target practice, you know, tchotchke activation type of thing that you can still leverage the excitement of pickleball in your trade show strategy. 

0:27:08

(Chris Dunn)

But for the most part, it is the event organizers themselves, you know, and turning that into larger sponsorship packages or including it in larger sponsorship packages. Right. Yeah, no, that that totally makes totally makes sense. And as you know, as most of a lot of our listeners are potential exhibitors as well, like think about how fun and exciting and how having something like that on the show floor as part of that event, it changes the flavor of things, right? And granted, some shows are serious. If you're in the medical profession and you're talking about saving lives and things, it's a different flavor than when you're at an aesthetics conference where people are there to find out how to look good and so forth. 

0:27:52

(Chris Dunn)

And obviously, almost all exhibitors are there for some sort of you know, gathering leads or increasing revenue, um, through, you know, marketing efforts and whatnot. 

0:28:02

(Speaker 22)

But it just, I got to think it changes the flavor of, of the folks who were there. 

0:28:07

(Speaker 8)

There's something to talk about, something to do, something to then relate, uh, you know, back to, and then, you know, like you're saying, tie it into a sponsorship opportunities. 

0:28:16

(Jakob Eliason)

Perfect. Yep. That's a goal we want to, you know, uh, We always want it to be free and no hassle, no stress. Come play if you want. Don't play if you don't want. Right. 

0:28:27

(Speaker 13)

Like, you know, and and one of the things that we are trying to get better at, and that's the beautiful part of working with event organizers and event marketers already is we can control a lot of what we can control with people getting on the court and playing and making that experience great. 

0:28:42

(Jakob Eliason)

There's a halo effect, right? Like you may have 15, 16 people just waiting to play. Right. And that's that could be 20 minute wait. because we're I mean we're doing everything we can we want to give people enough time, but not like them out there and get them off. And so, there's a halo effect and learning more about in designing, even more ways to convert the halo effect, if you will, is something that like we talk with our clients all the time about. 

0:29:09

(Jakob Eliason)

We just did one in our most recent one in Denver, you know, they brought out a drink cooler. And so like that was a new thing and it went really, really well. And so, you know, we try to stay out of being the experiential marketing arm of the whole thing. Um, and we control, we can control pickleball, but there's clearly ways to make the existing impact that's already happening even bigger. 

0:29:29

(Chris Dunn)

And that's why we're so excited to be coming back for, you know, year two for, with a lot of these events, um, that worked with us last year. They're bringing us back and a lot of them are in the health space. We actually, we love like the doctors and residents and researchers, like they love pickleball and I get, it really goes well in that world. Yeah, that's that's cool. And you know, your your background as a marketer, I think there's a reason you're here, right? This is not just by accident, obviously, you ended up in the spot. 

0:30:00

(Chris Dunn)

But I'm guessing as you as you're mentioning, you know, reboot, second year comes around, you're going back to those events. I'm imagining you're having conversations like Or you're being asked like, hey, you guys been doing this for a year. You've done all these different industries. You've done all these different shows and events and so forth. What works? What are some of the little inside tricks that you've seen around? 

0:30:25

(Chris Dunn)

creating more opportunities, uh, with either sponsorships or, or like you were just, you know, citing the operate, Hey, this, this could be great. You're going to have potentially 20 people waiting. 

0:30:35

(Speaker 4)

Why don't you build, you know, the, the drink activation, you know, you know, next to that. 

0:30:40

(Jakob Eliason)

And, um, I'm sure you're going to be asked for, Hey, like best practices. right like what's working out there and how do we move the needle based on what you've seen. Yep. And we are getting asked those questions. And what we do know from our experience with pickleball in general is that the key categories of hydration and fuel, like food, like snacks, and recovery, those kind of areas already work really, really well. Because when people get done playing, they want something to drink. 

0:31:11

(Jakob Eliason)

They want a snack. Or they're going to go find a snack. And maybe they want a towel. Or maybe they want to go to the bathroom. stretch, right. 

0:31:19

(Speaker 21)

And so, so those are kind of areas that we already know work and figuring out how to get, you know, get better at those and all the activations and working with, you know, learning whether that's us working with the event organizers to handle that part, or, you know, figuring out how that can be included in what we bring, you know, that's, but that's growth for us. 

0:31:38

(Speaker 11)

And that's opportunity we see. 

0:31:39

(Speaker 7)

And we every single event, we're trying to, you know, do something. 

0:31:44

(Chris Dunn)

So awesome. Awesome. All right. Let's go on to kind of the next set of questions, as it were. So you touched on it already. Corporate wellness, pretty much a very very popular topic of conversation these days with regards to wellness and just kind of mental health, right? 

0:32:05

(Jakob Eliason)

And granted, physical and mental are related. But as we kind of look at kind of those arenas, where do you see, you know, pickleball fitting into that? And what have you learned as you've, you know, kind of gone out there, done these events and you're gathering information as you're executing? It's a great question. And there's just so many ways that I could take this answer. The part about the accessibility and natural social part that we mentioned in the last, that I mentioned in the last set of questions, that's a key driver here too, right? 

0:32:39

(Jakob Eliason)

Because it doesn't matter whether it's folks that have never met before, people that live in different neighborhoods or people that work together. The game promotes that same thing in the corporate setting, right? And so if you think about that, and then you consider the absenteeism data out there and the presenteeism data out there, and then you think, I wonder if that's because the wellness stuff is just stuff people don't want to do. Right. And so what if you could infuse something people want to do that brings them into the wellness thing? 

0:33:14

(Speaker 6)

Right. 

0:33:14

(Speaker 20)

It's like nobody wants to do teletherapy. 

0:33:19

(Jakob Eliason)

Right. Like it. Right. I mean, some people may. But like, that's not something that you wake up and it's like, oh, my gosh, this brings me so much joy to do. Check the boxes on my corporate wellness program. 

0:33:30

(Jakob Eliason)

And we know from companies like Planet Fitness how few people actually go to the gym that have memberships anyway. And so I think that's The first critical part is pickleball brings something to the table that people actually want to do. And the meteoric growth proves that, right? And the retention period of the sport, we're not losing players, it's just growing. And so that's the first one is like that type of thing, that phenomenon inside a company culture, it's hard to bet against something like that. Something people want to do that they can do together that builds relationships, you know, I think we're a little early to have real quantitative data on pickleball and its effect and impact. 

0:34:13

(Jakob Eliason)

But as the token pickleball guy here, you know, I would bet on a bunch of different variations of how this gets involved. 

0:34:21

(Speaker 19)

You mentioned physical and social or emotional health. 

0:34:27

(Jakob Eliason)

Social health is a huge one. The surgeon general came out and was talking about loneliness and how it's an epidemic. 

0:34:34

(Speaker 5)

And after 

0:34:34

(Jakob Eliason)

COVID, loneliness is just like killing and crushing people. Pickleball's an antidote to that. 

0:34:41

(Speaker 12)

Pickleball's a solution. 

0:34:43

(Jakob Eliason)

It's naturally so. You can't walk into a game and not talk to somebody, no matter where it is. You just have to. And I, anecdotally, running a pickleball facility, I've had people tell me their lives have been changed. My business partner lost over 100 pounds playing pickleball. I've had mothers come and tell me they've got their sons back because their son was playing video games and now they want to go play pickleball with their mom. 

0:35:06

(Jakob Eliason)

And then I've also had people come up to me at conferences and trade shows and tell me this was like the most fun activation they've ever had. They've never played this. Now they're going to go back. They can't wait. They're already looking for places to play. And it's just like you can witness like the change in someone's persona. 

0:35:23

(Jakob Eliason)

Like you can just, it just, and it's, it's amazing. And I can't really describe it. It's like, we call it pickleball magic. And that's what it does. Whether we're talking about putting pickleball courts on your campus, whether we're talking about getting your team memberships to a pickleball facility. Again, there's lots of ways bringing pickleball to all of your corporate events that you do. 

0:35:48

(Chris Dunn)

I think there's a lot of ways that companies are going to be able to capitalize on it from the wellness side. But the one thing is for sure that it should be on everyone's radar. If you want to see all those metrics that people talk about with corporate wellness programs, like actually hitting the mark. Yeah, that's that's awesome. I love that. And just, you know, the those little heartwarming stories that you've mentioned about, you know, it's it's at the end of the day, it's a game. 

0:36:17

(Chris Dunn)

And yet it's so much more. Right. It just it has these these massive impacts. So that's super cool to hear about. You know, we're not just talking about, this would be fun to do at a trade show. It's like stuff that actually changes lives at the end of the day, which is really cool. 

0:36:35

(Chris Dunn)

You've touched on it already, but talk to us a little bit about the growth metrics and so forth. I was talking to one of my coworkers this morning about it, and neither of us really played very much. So we're kind of outsiders looking at it, and we're like, obviously the buzz is everywhere about it. We literally were like, how do they know, right? If they're calculating these growth metrics, how do they know? And you had a great stat. 

0:36:59

(Chris Dunn)

You're like, we know this is going to continue because of the age group of the people that are getting involved. But why don't you kind of paint a little broader picture on like, what are some of the stats? 

0:37:07

(Jakob Eliason)

Where is this going? International expansion. I think you mentioned that primarily this is a North American thing right now, but boom, it's going to blow up, right? Right. Yeah, it's already blowing up. I'm grateful to the people that are leading that international charge too. 

0:37:24

(Jakob Eliason)

You know, there's a lot of folks that are in the pickleball business in America that are, that are, that are taking the risk right there. They're invested the money to get it overseas. And, um, they're doing a lot of permanent stuff, you know, which is good for me. Every, all the, any more permanent popularity brings more portable popularity as far as I'm concerned. And so there's, there's, I would say there's three kind of data points that round out the growth of pickleball. One is the 311 % growth over the past three years. 

0:37:51

(Jakob Eliason)

And I would say that that number is a little bit subjective. There's a few different reporting methods, like there is with anything, that show kind of a range of people that have played. Because there's some stuff I was reading last year that was estimating about 50 million Americans played pickleball. A lot of the stuff recently is saying something like 35 to 50. There's a spectrum, but it is a lot of people. It's growing faster than baseball. 

0:38:18

(Jakob Eliason)

It's more popular than baseball. I saw that stat recently too. And so just the growth is the first thing. The second thing is how, what I mentioned earlier, how the market has shifted. It's not that the older folks aren't playing pickleball and it's not growing in the 50, 55 and up bracket. It's just that it's growing so much faster in the 35 and under bracket. 

0:38:42

(Jakob Eliason)

They've contributed kind of the It was like, it was, it was a chasm, like the older group got it first. And then that started translating into, you know, playing and you can see it a lot through playing with their kids and playing with their grandkids. And then it got passed through and it was like a generational whoosh of demand. Um, and now again, you're really starting to see massive investment in youth pickleball, um, and, and collegiate in that level. So that's the second one. So major growth B major growth in all levels, including the young level. 

0:39:12

(Jakob Eliason)

I don't want to paint, paint it that it's like, Oh, this young. You know, the young crowd, that's where we're at. It's like they may be like driving the future of it, but there's a ton of people in every segment, market segment, if you will, that are playing pickleball. And then the third one is not necessarily about the players itself, but it's about the market. And so one of the really interesting things about the pickleball market I haven't seen an update on this, but the most recent data was that there needed to be about $900 million worth of investment in pickleball courts in the United States to meet the existing demand. that we saw that we get that $900 million worth of ports down, there's probably going to be another billion dollars worth of demand if things keep growing. 

0:40:02

(Jakob Eliason)

And so just looking at that part right there, those three things are what told us and what continue to tell us that Pickleball is booming. And so that's, you know, Pickleball 901 in our indoor facility is really a play on that side of the fence, right? Like we, they're just the supply and demand is booming. for pickleball, mostly, honestly, the disparity is even worse in non -suburban affluent areas. It's either expensive urban areas where pickleball is popping up or expensive suburban areas where pickleball is popping up. Figuring out how to bridge that gap and make something accessible and close to the populations that really, really need it, They need the physical health. 

0:40:46

(Jakob Eliason)

They need the social health. They need the emotional health. All that stuff is a huge tenant of ours. But anyway, those three tenants are, for me, that's pickleball. It is so many people. It is all types of people. 

0:41:00

(Jakob Eliason)

And it's not stopping because there's already a supply and demand problem. And so we see that, and then we looked at the events world specifically. And there's very few conferences and trade shows that have a crowd small en at a pickleball place. An those are kind of getting in corporate is like doin at your pickleball place and and Bev and all those thin It's very hard to do that with a 10 ,000, 15 ,000 person conference. And so, you know, we look again from the other side of the fence, we looked at like, okay, if people are struggling to find pickleball where they're supposed to be pickleball, then they're really going to struggle to find it where there's not supposed to be pickleball. 

0:41:44

(Chris Dunn)

And we thought, we think everybody's going to be looking over there and we can take this lane. And so that's just kind of where we landed, but we are playing both sides of the pickleball fence right now. And we've got a lot of cool plans that we'll be rolling out. It's pretty soon on the permanent side. Cool. That's great. 

0:42:02

(Chris Dunn)

And I love how you kind of rolled it into like where we're kind of in this new kind of era of work. We are this multi -generational workforce, right? We've got people from 22 countries. old to, you know, fully engaged in active, uh, employees who are 72, 75 sometimes. So you're, you're, you're boomers and you're extras and you're millennials and you're Gen Z. And, um, like everybody's in the workplace these days. 

0:42:29

(Jakob Eliason)

Uh, you know, people are living longer and they're healthier, you know, due in part to things like this, but we're having to figure out how to work with each other. So what a great way to do that, right? There's not a lot of sports that a 70 -year -old person can play against a 25 -year -old person and compete on, you know, call it compete. on a, you know, we can, we golf with handicaps and stuff like that, but, but even that is, is difficult. So it's so cool that, uh, that, that what you're into in this pickleball phenomenon is there for a lot of different reasons, but, but as you're saying, you know, accessibility of it and the, the fun factor and, you know, it can be so many different things to so many different people. The fun factor is important. 

0:43:14

(Jakob Eliason)

that's the difference between pickleball and golf. It's a 75 year old and 25 year old can play. 

0:43:18

(Speaker 10)

One of those two is pissed off by the ninth hole, right? 

0:43:22

(Jakob Eliason)

Like if they play anything like me, they're both pissed off. 

0:43:27

(Speaker 18)

It comes around on the 17th hole, right? 

0:43:30

(Jakob Eliason)

The driver comes around on the 17th hole. I'm already mad. I'm ready to go home. It's been five hours. I'm hot. 

0:43:36

(Speaker 17)

Pickleball just, it flips that, right? 

0:43:37

(Speaker 16)

Like you can, you can, you can have that same spark and connection over 15 to 20 minutes and way less aggravation and way more joy. 

0:43:46

(Chris Dunn)

Um, and that's at least that's my been my experience and I grew up playing golf my entire life. My dad's a huge golfer and he still does the golf thing instead of the pickleball thing. And that's okay. Awesome. Awesome. Hey, um, we are at 43 minutes. 

0:44:01

(Chris Dunn)

I've got a couple of questions left and then we're going to wrap things up, put a bow on it and we'll be, we'll be a little bit under an hour here. So, um, event strategy and practice. implementation, right? 

0:44:11

(Jakob Eliason)

So we've got event planners out there, we've got trade show professionals. What you're talking about here sounds really great. Talk to us a little bit about some of the things that we need to think about from an execution standpoint. It's obviously, it's space, it's logistics, it's outdoor, indoor, weather weighs in, stuff like that. So what are some of the stuff things that may be kind of a crash course in 101 for folks who are thinking about bringing a group like you in? Yeah, sure. 

0:44:39

(Jakob Eliason)

So let's start with the size. General, generally speaking, the footprint of what we prefer to bring in is 30 feet by 60 feet, maybe a few feet shorter on each side. But that's typically you're looking at 30 feet by 60 feet. That is the regulation size playing area and out of bound space. Out of bound space is important because somebody might be running and you don't want them going straight into the pipe and drape or through it into the graveyard back there, which is a lot of, you know, we get. And that's because that'd be the second thing is we understand that there's extra space in some of these halls. 

0:45:11

(Jakob Eliason)

And we would love to fill it, improve how good of an experience it is, and then look at how do we get into the middle of the action, which is where a lot of our conversations go now is, you know, they'll bring us in, they've got some space in the back and or on the side or something like that in the hall. So that's the type of space you're looking for. As far as how many courts, we had one pickleball court at Bitcoin 2025 with 30 5 ,000 people, it was full all the time. And the effect was the right effect, right? You had some people waiting, you had people playing, you had people watching, and it was an experience. And so you've done two courts, the most, unless we're doing like a company event, we're doing a company event in Las Vegas for a big sales kickoff for a big company in a few weeks, and we're doing six courts for them. 

0:46:00

(Jakob Eliason)

But it's just like a one day big tournament for their whole group. But typically in the trade show event world, we're doing one court, maybe two courts, right? And that's typically plenty. And space is the most important, the most important reason. But just knowing that our team is there on site to facilitate that gameplay and make sure that people aren't playing too long, but aren't playing too short and that they're having a good experience. 

0:46:24

(Jakob Eliason)

And so space is the, the big thing. I'll answer a few questions that I kind of get about the activation because some of it's self -explanatory. We're A to Z. We're going to ship it. We're going to install it. We're going to run it. We're going to remove it. 

0:46:37

(Jakob Eliason)

We're going to ship it back out and handle all of that. And you shouldn't have to touch anything or deal with anything outside of signing the contract and a kickoff call. Right. And so at least that's our goal. And so, but some questions that I get, one is, you know, do you bring barriers to keep the balls from flying in? We have a few different ways that we can do that. 

0:46:57

(Jakob Eliason)

We have some netting that we can do along the sides. We, like I mentioned, we've got 20 by eight, 20 foot long by eight foot tall, big backstops that we, that we can use. And then we also work sometimes alongside, you know, Freeman or GS or somebody and get pipe and drape on one side if we need to. And so we will work with you guys on making sure that, you know, You're not putting yourselves in a scenario where balls are flying around. And again, with one court, four people playing, the balls usually aren't going to be flying around. If they do, we also bring what I mentioned. 

0:47:28

(Jakob Eliason)

We have a foam modified pickleball. If we're doing pickleball on carpet, Like we've got to put the tall court down on carpet. We're often going to use this foam ball. It's going to bounce way better. It's going to reduce injury risk by miles because that little aside from the little plastic ball that we're used to. And so we will work through ways to make sure we've got a few different ways to make sure that you don't have to worry about that. 

0:47:52

(Jakob Eliason)

We bring we have a waiver for everything. Every single time we come to a show, somebody they're scanning a QR code, they're signing a waiver that list. is given to event organizers 99 % of the time. And that's to hand to sponsors, whatever. So we do have that type of built -in lead conversion, if you will, and we're exploring ways to get more leads converted from people who aren't playing. And so those are the main things, again, indoor, Indoor or outdoor will work, right? 

0:48:24

(Jakob Eliason)

Outdoor, wind is a consideration. Rain is consideration, right? And so, which wind and rain and things change the way it's got to be set up. We've got to like adhere it all together and it can't just sit there and fly off. The ball will shoot around everywhere if you're playing in windy San Diego or something like that. And so, But indoor is preferred the concrete in the trade show halls exhibit halls is perfect You know, that's that's all we need as a subsurface. 

0:48:57

(Jakob Eliason)

We can do ballroom carpet as well like the thin ballroom carpet turf grass Sand dirt all of those things are possible. We just have to build decking And so we just got to get, we have to get, you know, like some turf protector underneath it. And then like we have a plywood base that we can do. That's not actually plywood, but it feels like it. And so we just have to build a decking underneath to be able to do it on those surfaces, but we totally can. And so we don't typically because most of these trade shows are not, you know, they're not throwing us out on the beach. 

0:49:31

(Speaker 3)

Um, you know, that'd be really cool. 

0:49:32

(Jakob Eliason)

And so, um, but keeping it inside, keeping that, keeping the, the, the actual like setup minimal allows my team to come in and be able to do it instead of, you know, having to hire people to build your big boots. Like it's just not, it's not a huge lift like that. And we just try to make it really easy. Our team can come in and get it installed like that. And, um, then they'll run the show. Nice, nice. 

0:49:57

(Jakob Eliason)

And they, and you were mentioning, not only are they rolling in and they're setting it up, but they're working with people, they're kind of, and I think you mentioned this on the front end, is sometimes people need a nudge right so if the court is empty your guys will go out there and start playing and just you know all of a sudden people are looking they weren't just now I'm not just looking at an empty court I'm looking at people playing and like oh like this is this thing's open like I want to go play right so that's that becomes the draw it becomes a draw right and that's that is everybody on our team knows that's their job The only time that you won't see that is maybe day three at the very end when we're dead tired. But for the most part, yeah, we're out there. And thank God we all love it too, right? It's just so easy. 

0:50:41

(Speaker 15)

You can get out there and hit for 30 minutes and then just forget that you were doing anything that important. 

0:50:48

(Chris Dunn)

And so, yeah, our team is there to not only keep it active, but teach people. I would say 80 % of the people, we're like teaching them and giving them a crash course to the game, like as we're playing with them for the first time. And we try to keep, you know, we're not out there like, we need four people to play a game to 11, you know, and then be like, no, that's against the rule. Like we just hit the ball, whack it around, laugh, smile, and look at all this branded stuff. You know, like that's the whole mission. There you go. 

0:51:20

(Chris Dunn)

Awesome, man. This has been really good. This is one of the first episodes. We talk a lot of theory. 

0:51:26

(Jakob Eliason)

We talk a lot of marketing execution and stuff like this. This is one of the more practical options or episodes that we've had where we're not just saying, like, you could do a cool activation. We're saying, this is a cool activation, and it's got a lot of really attractive benefits from the event standpoint that go along with it. All right, well, we've got a thing here that we like to do. So you as our guest, I'm going to ask you two or three insights for marketers and event professionals, kind of a takeaway, something practical that people can kind of take with them and put in their pocket and roll out. What do you want to leave people with as far as ideas or suggestions? 

0:52:06

(Jakob Eliason)

So I'll say my number one insight for marketers, and this is what I've built a lot off of, is to focus on your customer instead of your competition. Listen to them, talk to them, ask them questions, design what you want, what they want, right, especially if you're for us in the startup phase, like that's the only way we could figure out if this thing was viable, is we had to be like, what do you want trade show organizer with this, I can bring pickleball court, what else? Right. And so, you know, that, that has helped me every single marketing when I've had started with some type of customer prospect research. This is what I want to sell this to. I need to understand them. 

0:52:50

(Jakob Eliason)

We're learning every single day, which is hilarious about the events professionals is they all have different titles. So like you can't, there is like cold email campaign you can run, you know, like you can't, you just, you gotta find 18 different variations. 

0:53:03

(Chris Dunn)

And so we're getting there. 

0:53:05

(Jakob Eliason)

I've got like a whole notion. I've got like 17 different titles that I've experienced. Um, but, but understanding, um, what they want out of the events is always step one. Even when we get a sales call, it's like, what are you looking to get out of it? So that's number one. 

0:53:19

(Speaker 14)

My number one, my number two is, am I allowed to curse? 

0:53:25

(Jakob Eliason)

Yes, you are. My number two insight for marketers is to make some fucking noise. Again, I've, a lot of my successes have been about making noise. We do a pickleball pop -up party at a brewery. I just wanted people to know this name and do it in the craziest way possible. And I wanted to keep, and we've kept making noise. 

0:53:45

(Jakob Eliason)

since then. We just did a hundred hours of free pickleball at our place. You know, we do these events all over the country and we put pictures and videos online that are really cool with fun hip hop music behind it, right? And so like, we're just making noise, making sure people know who you are and that you exist is so important. And then for event professionals, you know, admittedly, I don't think I would call my, I mean, I guess I am an event professional now, but that's not my, my background is not in this type of event, but what I have learned, I'll say what I've learned about events is that fun is so important and fun changes the dynamic of every single encounter that you have. Like every Pickle activation that I do, I don't, there's nobody that comes up upset. 

0:54:31

(Jakob Eliason)

There's no negativity, right? It doesn't matter. The only thing that some pickleball guy will come up and be like, that's not a real pickleball, you know? And I'm like, this isn't a real pickleball facility. Like we're not, this is a trade show hall. And so give me a break, you know? 

0:54:46

(Jakob Eliason)

And so, but the fun, like the joy that it brings, like I will always be trying to forever infuse joy and fun into any event that we do because I think from every perspective, right? 

0:55:04

(Chris Dunn)

ROI just down to brand recall, you know, like all of those are impacted when funds involved. If you can give somebody just an awesome experience, they're going to tell people about it and remember that it was you forever. And most likely they're going to go keep up with you because I get followers on Instagram and LinkedIn all the time from these shows that just want to keep up with what we're doing. And that's going to pay off in the long run, because they're going to bring me to pickleball. 

0:55:30

(Speaker 13)

They're going to bring me to something with pickleball. Because of that, just great relationship we built. 

0:55:35

(Jakob Eliason)

So those would be my three. 

0:55:37

(Speaker 12)

Yeah, no, that's awesome. 

0:55:38

(Chris Dunn)

And what, what a good, what a good way to, to, you know, put a bow on this and wrap it up. And, um, I think as event professionals, like the idea of bringing joy and smiles, you know, to our, to our attendees and to the, our guests is huge, right? Because everybody's like you said, like no one, no one leaves with a sourpuss face going, that sucked to a trade show and had fun. Right. Right. 

0:56:05

(Jakob Eliason)

And I've never, I've never, I've never had someone be upset. It's crazy. Yeah, that's good stuff. Good stuff. So, all right, my friend, well, listen, we're gonna, we're gonna wrap this up. Let everybody know that might, you know, want to reach out and touch base and connect with, with Jakob. 

0:56:20

(Jakob Eliason)

What is the best way to reach you? So to reach me, probably LinkedIn. You can hit me with a DM or a follower or whatever on LinkedIn. 

0:56:29

(Speaker 11)

If you want to connect about pickleball or like your event, I would say go to www . 

0:56:35

(Speaker 10)

pickleballpopups . 

0:56:36

(Chris Dunn)

com. There's a big green button that says book like that. 

0:56:39

(Speaker 9)

That's going to go directly to my team. 

0:56:41

(Jakob Eliason)

Somebody is going to call you immediately. I don't want to be a bottleneck if that's what you're interested in. But if you do just want to connect with me and say, hey, add me on LinkedIn is the best spot. Awesome. That's fantastic. So I got to imagine, I mean, you're scaling your team, right? 

0:56:55

(Jakob Eliason)

You guys are probably adding, you're adding property, you're adding assets, you have the ability to send different teams in different directions all at the same time so that you can kind of be in a bunch of different places at once. It's challenging. The biggest challenge is, is scaling people and trying to catch and trying to balance the supply and demand too. 

0:57:17

(Chris Dunn)

It's like, you can't bring full -time people. It's got to be part -time for a little while. 

0:57:20

(Jakob Eliason)

How do you know it? And so that's difficult. 

0:57:23

(Speaker 8)

And a lot of you event professionals listening, you like to do stuff last minute. 

0:57:27

(Chris Dunn)

And so every last minute deal means Jakob's got to go on the road. 

0:57:33

(Speaker 7)

And so, which is fine, but we're trying to, yeah. 

0:57:36

(Chris Dunn)

out of tha is so popular and that th to 60 year olds across th really good fits for this Awesome. 

0:57:51

(Speaker 6)

I'm thinking about it like as as my, you know, as I'm flexed as I invest in or look into flex retirement in a few years, like this could be a freaking great way to spend some time. 

0:58:01

(Chris Dunn)

I could continue to get my event fixes, but expand upon something that's less frustrating than golf and good for me. 

0:58:09

(Speaker 5)

Yeah, I'm telling you, it's it's a lot of fun. 

0:58:12

(Chris Dunn)

You're not the first person to say that to me. Yeah. Fantastic. All right. Well, we'll exchange information after the show. So awesome. 

0:58:19

(Chris Dunn)

My friend Melissa has been great. I don't know. On my end, my audio and video is not necessarily lining up, but our producer Juana says everything's good. Regardless of how we look, although we're both extremely handsome, I got to say that I think the content here is great. Check us out. Listen to us on your favorite podcast platform. 

0:58:43

(Chris Dunn)

You'll learn a lot and really a lot of great nuggets there for some great ideas. Jakob, thanks for joining. 

0:58:51

(Speaker 4)

Appreciate it. Thank you to everybody. 

0:58:53

(Speaker 3)

Happy eventing. Happy rest of the week out there. And thanks to everybody from our house to yours. Thanks for tuning into the Toolbox. So cheers, and we'll see you next week. Take care. 

0:59:04

Bye. Bye -bye.